Thursday, December 8, 2016

The Joys of Cultural Enrichment

A group of migrant men bring “vibrancy” to a German subway:

Remember if and when Marine Le Pen wins the French election and Geert Wilders becomes prime minister of Holland next year, it won’t have anything to do with the hundreds – and probably thousands – of incidents like this, and ones even worse, occurring on the streets of Europe every day (e.g., this, this and this). And no doubt if you suspect it might have something to do with it, you’re a hateful racist and xenophobe.

39 comments:

The video you posted is originally from the German tabloid "Bild", the biggest newspaper in Germany, but not with the best of reputations.

Their original story (in German) is here: http://www.bild.de/regional/berlin/koerperverletzung/maedchen-treppe-runter-gestossen-49095948.bild.html

There is absolutely no hint in their piece that the assailant and the other men in his group are migrants. This is understandable since, according to the piece, the police have no idea who these men are and are still looking for them (the incident happened, apparently, on 27 October). Are you sure you are not falling prey to virulent anti-immigrant groups who seem to have taken up this story and arbitrarily decided that the assailants are "migrants"? When I googled a headline from your video, the first result to come up was a Facebook page of the German right-wing racist movement Pegida.

More generally, I wonder if you're based in Europe. I am and I can assure you that, whilst safety problems are certainly not inexistant, whatever Le Pen or Wilders & Co. might say, there is no general sentiment that such problems are only or mainly due to "migrants" or would, somehow, magically disappear if we, just as magically, got rid of all migrants.

I have always respected and admired your posts about economics. Whilst you are quite within your rights raising reasonable concerns about the effects of migration, please please don't slide into racist populism or worse.

In the meantime, while you are expressing concern over whether or not the video involved a recent migrant or someone from a past wave of immigration, the Socialist Party in France, PvdA in the Netherlands and the Social Democratic Party in Germany and Sweden shrinks to its lowest vote share ever since WWII.

@Stavros: Excellent job raising these issues with LK, who seems to think he can delusionally enlist the Left in his Anti-Immigration tirades. Right now, there are plenty of blogs or Vlogs by Ellis Winningham, Michael Hudson, Ha-Joon Chang, Steve Keen to warrant spending time elsewhere. Especially Ellis, who breaks it down quite nicely for the amature. I'll keep perusing the older economics part of this blog, but I think it's best we leave LK to stew in his own Xenophobic juices for the time being #NotMyProgressive

Most rank and file working class left-wing voters already *are* opposed to mass immigration. This is why, for example, the British working class (with the lower middle class) voted in a large majority for Brexit and many have defected to UKIP

I'd be most fascinated at your proof that such people who would defect to the Libertarian-leaning UKIP are "left-wing." I'd bet they aren't Russell Brand fans, anyway.

No, you f*cking idiot. I said that many working class people "have defected to UKIP", which means they once were solid Labour party voters (left-wing), but have now abandoned the Labour party and become UKIP voters (right-wing). Do you f*cking understand now?

No, you f*cking idiot. I said that many working class people "have defected to UKIP", which means they once were solid Labour party voters (left-wing), but have now abandoned the Labour party and become UKIP voters (right-wing). Do you f*cking understand now

Am I crazy or did you just paraphrase back to me the same thing I just said, which is what I originally understood?

The only new information is the Labour party. Which begs the next question: Compared to the UK Greens or Lib-Dem, you think Labour is "left-wing?"

(1) Labour is the main left-wing party in Britain; it is more left-wing than the Lib-Dems. It's not different from the Greens on most issues. The Greens were somewhat more left-wing on economics and environmentalism.

(2) to get back to original issue: you agree in the UK working class left-wing voters or former left-wing working class voters already *are* opposed to mass immigration?

KevinAnyone can search and find your links to "realjews" and other such crap that you have posted here. Normally I don't make a fuss out of people's prejudices, but if you are going to start slinging accusations at LK ...

So you agree that the Western Europeans should totally reject mass immigration of white, homophobic, violent Christian fundamentalists, because these people would make their societies unsafe and bring an objectionable culture?

There was actually reasonable objections as to whether or not Shepard's homosexuality was the motivation for his having been murdered, fyi.

I'm going to give you the same answer that I've given you a gazillion times, already:

If someone has not criminal record or history of acts of violence that can be determined, then there's not much of a reason to exclude them. Otherwise your disparaging someone based on a "thought crime." Shades of Orwell.

"If someone has not criminal record or history of acts of violence that can be determined, then there's not much of a reason to exclude them. "

So the Netherlands should allow the mass immigration of 50 million American Christian fundamentalists who hate gays, hate Muslims and want women to have no reproductive rights, as long as they have no criminal record? Do tell, Mr F*cking Idiot.

Wait a minute, you've been arguing that American Christian fundamentalists have a violent, illiberal culture filled with homophobia and racism... So now suddenly they're not

No, I've said that if beliefs can keep you out of a country, then more than just Islamics need to be banned.

So the Netherlands should allow the mass immigration of 50 million American Christian fundamentalists who hate gays, hate Muslims and want women to have no reproductive rights, as long as they have no criminal record? Do tell, Mr F*cking Idiot

The fact that their illiberal culture and the effects of their illiberal culture on Dutch society at large would be very bad for Holland, and for gay people or women in Holland, and that the majority of Dutch would prefer not to have them?

Guess you got me on that one. I'm not much for dictating to other cultures how they should be. I have an opinion about how they aren't exactly living in the 20th Century, but I can't begrudge anyone the right to paddle their own boat. This goes for the Muslim world as well.

Trump's attempts at a more general protectionist policy hasn't even properly began yet. He's not even president. But I suppose idiots like you can perfectly predict everything that is going to happen in the next 4 years?

No, actually. Based on Trump's verifiable volatile emotions and policy stances, I maintain one never could predict anything he would do if he actually were POTUS. Counting on him to actually accomplish anything would make me an idiot like some other people I know ;-)

What we can say is that what Trump did with Carrier was something Obama could have done all along i.e. prevent outsourcing by using tax breaks, denial of govt contracts, or both. By being seen to "do something" Trump gets positive publicity even if it involves a tax break for business. Sanders is right that it should be sticks instead of carrots. And no, we dunno what Trump will do when president, but of course he is gonna give handouts and tax breaks to businessman because he has loved that in his own career

Kain, I'm not sure of the point you're trying to make. The shrinkage of traditional social democratic parties is certainly not good news, although given their enthusiastic embrace of neo-liberalism one might well be tempted to say that they had it coming. But can be it be that you're somehow suggesting we should condone the spurious association of crimes with migrants, just so we can boost up the flagging fortunes of the socialdemocratic left? If that's not what you're trying to say, then what is it?

Does the man who pushed that woman down the stairs look like an ethnic German to you

LK, ever seen the movie Windtalkers? There's a scene where one of the Native Americans who fought for the US in WWII is accused of "looking like a Jap" by one of the more redneck soldiers. Eventually they all agree he does in fact, look Japanese and use him in a plot to foil enemy soldiers.

I can't help but think of that as you marshall the "Does he look like..." argument about the video and then move on to show us links about Immigrants committing crimes. Seems fitting.

My point is that the more the left/social democratic parties apologizes or dissects the exactness of whether or not it was a migrant that committed a crime, the Left will continue to lose ground by embracing the arrival of migrants and mass immigration in general.

The first step of any successful Left-wing movement is that there are plenty of drawbacks to mass immigration, particularly with the working class and their wages and opportunities, and particularly with a cultural conflict that may lead new communities to become enclaves that do not associate themselves with the cultural of their host country, and instead form gangs to police what they deem to be their "territory".

Next, the left/social democrats have to address other economic issues, particularly ones of full employment, opportunity, and public investment.

It will do us no good whatsoever to warn us not to be Islamophobic about the migrants in Cologne who sexually assaulted women on New Years.

Ok kevin a simple question for you but i doubt you will have the balls to answer it.

Lets say tomorrow 650 million radically oriented muslims without criminal record will come to the u.s hypothetically speaking.

Then in the meanwhile they will found the shariya party which will advocate for the shariya law and of course this party will be protected by the first amendment.

In the next elections for the senate presidency and congress they will take the majority they needed in order to make a new constitutionalamendment which will repeal all other amedments and will instal shariya law in the u.s.

1.What will you do next?

2.wouldnt you regret for your decision to allow mass immigration in retrospect?

Hi LK, love your blog etc. Anyway, so I get that you think that repudiating Postmodern IdPol and being anti-Muslim immigration is the best strategy for appealing to the working class and creating a new, invigorated movement for social democracy and economic nationalism, and that this idea is the foundation of your advocacy for a new "Realist"/"Alt" Left. But, like others who have commented, I disagree. I think that a real "Realist" would see that this strategy is, in fact, naive in the extreme. This is not a normative stance I'm taking here, but a pragmatic one: I just don't think this strategy is nearly as sound, or wise, as you think it is.I see it this way: your anti-Islam, pro-nuclear-family, pro-destruction-of-EU Realist Left movement might, in principle, attract working-class people who long ago abandoned "the Left" or who have never identified as part of the Left. However, it will fail to attract (indeed, repel or turn off) at least 40% of people who currently identify as left-wing. Obviously, you will simply reject this demographic claim (my uncertainty about the first part in particular). But you surely realise that the young, not the old, are currently the biggest hope for a new leftist movement - I'm sure you're familiar with the voting figures in the US, and Corbyn and Bernie's demographics. And here's the thing: you cannot win over the support of young people who call themselves "liberals", "leftists" or "democratic socialists" (by which they really mean social democrats, as you know) by completely rejecting IdPol. You cannot, for example, decry the "virtue-signalling" of people who condemn Trump's misogyny; you certainly cannot identify with a movement (this "Alt Left" of yours) which, as you've already written about, has managed to attract blatant racists. You cannot forget the fact that the black working-class is crucial to a rejuvenated leftist movement (at least in the US) - more importantly, you cannot forget the fact that focussing on black issues inevitably means focussing on class, even if it is not intended, simply because the black population is so disproportionately ravaged by poverty and economic injustice. You cannot forget that the immigrant working-class is crucial to a rejuvenated leftist movement in all places. You cannot ignore how immigration has changed the attitudes of the younger generations across the West (you cannot expect them to simply reverse their historically unprecedentedly cosmopolitan and liberal attitudes). You certainly cannot win over the support of young people by demonising Muslims in the fashion exemplified recently on this blog (though I don't deny that it makes sense to be wary of large influxes of migrants who come from patriarchal backward cultures, and that we should try to talk about this gently). The Millenial and Gen Y generations are the most cosmopolitan and racially tolerant in history; like it or not, a great many of them are extremely sensitive to anything they perceive as containing the seeds of racism - and not all of such people are PoMo cultists too worthless to recruit.

I think that (again, in purely pragmatic terms), the smart leftist should be following Bernie's lead, essentially to a tee. I think Bernie's got it exactly right: oppose open borders (as he says, "That's a Koch brothers proposal"), but also support Black Lives Matter, also decry the misogyny and racism of Trump, and so on. I think the smart leftist should adopt Bernie's recent stance that diversty is "not enough"; I think they should definitely not adopt the stance that diversity is necessarily corrosive to social cohesion and capital (which is not to say that there's no argument there, but among young people an anti-diversity message just cannot be sold). I know that you will happily dismiss all this, because you think my demographic premise is wrong: because you think that a properly robust Realist Left movement has the potential to win over *vast* numbers of people who currently vote for UKIP, le Front National, Trump, etc. The only way I can think to respond to this position is by posing some questions: Are you familiar with 20th century history? How many people who support these parties have you met? Don't you know that being left is intractably associated with being socially progressive? No doubt some of these right-wing voters might be partial to a Realist Left movement, no doubt some of them are just really pissed off at an establishment and would be highly attracted to a well-formulated Realist Left platform. But I have equally little doubt that this group is not a majority of the voters for these nationalist parties and leaders. Not even close.

One reason you might dismiss all this as stupid and absurd is that you don't believe in abandoning the truth for the sake of strategy. But, unless I'm wrong, that's what you've already been doing, in trying to exploit anti-immigration, anti-Islamic, nationalist sentiment (which you don't feel massively passionately about) to generate support for a transformed left-wing movement. Maybe you do feel massively passionately about this stuff, though, in which case there is no hope for me to persuade you.